


Bare-Faced At Your Masquerade

by homsantoft (tofsla)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Gen, Working At Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6282754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofsla/pseuds/homsantoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josephine and Leliana find some ways to fit together, and miss others. A friendship at least as important than the romance it could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bare-Faced At Your Masquerade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meelah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meelah/gifts).



> Happy Wintersend, Meelah! You asked for:
> 
> \- friendships that turn into something more  
> \- friendships that last longer than romantic ones  
> \- friendships that transcend love and lust
> 
> And I hope this exploration of friendship and romance hits the spot!

1.

 

Orlais glitters, but not with the deep warm colours of Antiva; brilliant and rich, blue and rose and gold, high white marble arches. One might call it a little cold. One might simply see it as a different sort of romance.

Josephine is only barely of age, and very much inclined to see romance in a great many things. Her mask is detailed with gold, the form of it sweeping around to the right side of her face into elaborate, twisting points laid against her dark hair; her dress is a delicate pink, the colour of the season, and cut to be significantly easier to run in than it appears.

Tell stories, learn secrets. Be alert. Impress.

In her sleeve, a long thin knife; in her embroidered boot, another. She would prefer not to consider them. The idea of them seemed fine enough, but to actually use them… no, no, better not to even touch the idea.

"You seem," a playful Orlesian voice says, "a little lost, I think." Deliberately cultured but very definite in its intonation where those born to it would allow themselves slackness.

Josephine turns, inwardly startled, and is met with a bow.

Hair an autumn red, leaves ready to fall, the late summer flowers that grow between the trees in the forests outside the city.

When the woman straightens, Josephine realises with a start that her mask is almost animal in its form, entirely contrary to the majority of the attendants of the ball; a suggestion of something vulpine in its angles and lines—or perhaps it's only the hair that makes her think so.

"Leliana," the woman says, offering neither a title or house name and thus no way to address her which is strictly within the bounds of propriety. "And you I think are soon to be representing the interests of Antiva here in our fair city, Lady Montilyet."

"In that I am afraid you are mistaken," Josephine says, chin raised. "Count Ambrosio holds that honoured position, and I would certainly not presume to relieve him of it, had I such power. You are speaking with an entertainer—I will not say merely, but—"

"We shall see," Leliana says, and this comment has some undefinable air of mystery to it which achieves three things: first, a sudden and quite inexplicable concern for the wellbeing of the Antivan ambassador; second, a fear that every uncertainty over her role she has ever felt is visible to quite everyone in the room; and third, a very childish urge to swoon.

This last is not helped by the deep bow which Leliana sweeps, or by the kiss that Leliana presses to her hand.

"In any case," she says, "I am to be certain _honoured_ to have met you. I had thought to request the pleasure of a dance, but I see," a glance somewhere beyond Josephine's shoulder, "that my services are required elsewhere."

And that is all it is. They do dance, more than once. They play games, and also the Game. Leliana is a little older, and so very secretive, and Josephine always rather thinks that she is being laughed at; but there is nothing beyond that, and Leliana is a fickle presence, only very rarely where one might expect her to be.

They have different patrons, different friends, different quarters of the city. Leliana is a bard through and through, Josephine hears, and is acutely aware of the unspoken distinction between her little group of friends and all of that. Resents it, a little. Leliana is dangerous, Leliana is scandalous. Well, and might Josephine not be dangerous too?

She still feels that worried distaste, however, over the knives. A girl in Antiva does not—and isn't that why she does? A thrill. A freedom. If only she were only a little better at telling herself she likes it. Likes it the way Leliana likes it.

So:

They are not friends.

They are also not anything else, in particular.

There is no reason why Josephine, kneeling in horror over the body of a young acquaintance whose death she has just caused, should think, with desperate longing:

_Leliana would know what to do._

But by that time, Leliana has already fled the city, and Josephine, at least for a time, is lost.

 

 

2.

 

Have you heard—do you remember—of course, I doubt _you_ would forget—a hero now, of course, and I wonder what it is that she—

"Josephine," Gia had called, breathless but loud, cutting across the chatter of the Offices of the Ambassador, "did you know that Leliana has returned from Denerim?"

And Josephine, who did not know, had said, "I certainly did," and, snapping her book of accounts firmly closed in favour of happier if spontaneously invented concerns, "I have been considering whether a party might perhaps be appropriate."

Once one has spoken the merest suggestion of such a thing, of course, one is more or less obliged to follow through on it. There are so many significant persons eager to meet this hero of the Fifth Blight, significant persons merely wishing to seem eager, or merely wishing to be seen; one must see to the catering, floral arrangements, music, seating placements for dinner which must be carefully calculated so as not to offer an unintended slight, dance lists—

"You see," Leliana says, her face without a mask, defiant in its nakedness, "did I not tell you? Ambassador Montilyet. And so you are."

"I rather thought you would have forgotten," Josephine says politely.

Leliana's laugh, a little deeper than she remembers. "Oh, my dear Ambassador, I never forget anyone beautiful or anyone interesting."

"And which might I have been?" Josephine asks, smiles, mouth visible under her half-mask.

"Hmm," Leliana says, and smiles too. "I wonder. Gold and blue passes you much better than pink, I must say. Not that the pink was bad. I wouldn't dream of suggesting such a thing."

"I believe you just did," Josephine says. "I take no offense. You're quite correct, of course. We have all committed our share of youthful indiscretions."

Of a pink dress which just barely misses being a flattering shade for one's skin tone and a body cooling on a beautifully tiled floor, which sin weighs more heavily? Well, naturally: in Val Royeaux as in Antiva City there can be only one answer, overwhelming in its obviousness.

Nonetheless, the body is a good deal more on her mind.

"That we have," Leliana says thoughtfully. "Perhaps we ought to commit a few more just in case, before we must be respectably old."

And her smile broadens.

It's the smile that does it, of course. It's the smile that makes Josephine remember, brings those early meetings back to her: her girlish excitement and irritation over a fox-masked woman who bowed and teased and flirted. Who slipped away from parties to steal compromising correspondence and leave tokens, returned to sing as though nothing had transpired, all with a daring that Josephine could only dream of.

Had, in fact, dreamt of.

It's the smile that leads her to steal several bottles of wine from her own very successful and mortally dull party, to slip out a side-door beside the kitchens with Leliana's hand curled warm and dry around hers.

Breathless laughter in a dark back-alley, the lightest rain falling although it isn't in the least bit cold. To their right, light spills from the windows of houses, from the lanterns in the main street; pools warm on the paving stones, on the night-muted green of trailing plants and elegant trees.

Leliana pulls her to the left, further into the dark. The small windows of servant's quarters, high above the street. The tall walls of the private gardens that backed onto the mouth of the river, and finally, the river itself, glittering and sedate, rain-stippled but smooth at the peak of the tide.

"Can you take the wall in that dress?" Leliana asks, laughter in her voice. "There's a little punt at the jetty on the other side, we can cross over—I have some friends in the lower city, and I'm quite sure they'll be having some sort of a party. They usually are."

"You mean to steal someone's boat?" Josephine hisses, although the thought delights her a little, makes her feel—well, not young precisely, she is very young yet and often acutely aware of it. But like a rather younger version of herself, all the same.

Someone else might have said: borrow, rather.

Or: no, of course not, you're right.

Leliana says: "Of course I do! How else would we cross?"

A scramble, complicated by the need to protect the bottles of wine; the garden, Josephine notes, is that of Duke de Foret's winter residence, and she has never liked the man. He is important, yes, and one must acknowledge the fact; but his self-importance is really the outside of enough.

Besides, he is shockingly rich. He may complain of a lost punt, but it will in no material way inconvenience him.

Very well.

Leliana, on the jetty, is undressing—removing the outer layers of her dress, at least, and the most inconvenient layer of corsetry. Where is it that she produced a light tunic from? Stored perhaps in the elaborate folds of her dress. The fact of its existence is undeniable. A well-made thing, of the sort a personal attendant might wear. A male personal attendant, at least.

" _Leliana,_ " Josephine says, wonderfully scandalised, as Leliana finishes the business of folding her dress neatly down into a small parcel, wrapped with the sheet of oilcloth that had covered the punt, the entirety of which she stows into a compartment beneath the till.

"Allow me, my lady," Leliana says, and oh, one should really be angry at her for teasing so.

Josephine allows herself to be handed into the punt, settles herself where she is instructed among the cushions near the bow, and Leliana jumps deftly up onto the till, undoing the mooring line as she goes; kicks them away from the jetty and out across the now undisturbed surface of the river.

The rain has stopped, and one moon casts faint silver light across the edges of the clouds

"Now, you see, we are quite respectable," Leliana says. "A lady and her attendant may travel in this way where they wish, no? Unremarkable."

"That _is_ a shame," Josephine says, before she can stop herself. "Oh, oh dear."

"You needn't be so careful," Leliana says. "We are alone together, after all. No Game here. I like to play, of course, but there's no need for it now, I promise you."

"I'm quite certain you've said those words to more than one person shortly before you ruined them," Josephine points out, not unreasonably. 

She has done so herself.

"Of course," Leliana says, and there is laughter in her eyes now, not only around the corners of her mouth where it usually lives. "Didn't you know? I am _reformed._ The Maker shows me where to direct my talents, and I obey. I play a different game now—for the most part."

"I must certainly hope I have done nothing to offend the Maker himself, then," Josephine says.

It is a night when all things are possible. Laughing and a little drunk, running along the streets behind the lesser Chantry that serves the lower city with people she hardly knows, with Leliana brilliant and sharp before her again—what could one not do?

What could one not be?

In the event what one does is lose one's underthings on a dare, and watch in horror as Leliana pins them very neatly and exactly up in front of the Chantry; what one does is very nearly kiss a woman one has long admired but never really known. Leliana's breath hot against her lips, a moment suspended in time.

What one does is feel. Feel so many things, so much love for the world and the city and all the people in it. For someone terrifying and enticing and unknown.

"Come _on_ ," someone shouts, further down the street, and Leliana pulls away, grabs her hand—and they're in motion once more, time flowing around them, the moment tugged away downstream.

What if they had kissed? What would have happened then?

The thought will linger a good deal longer than the urge to kiss, but Josephine does not yet know this. She has only that sense of unfolding potential. Of being on the edge of a happy discovery.

 

 

3.

 

So, then, they are friends. Josephine and Leliana, attending parties together, attending prayer together. The odd pair, the one soft and the other sharp. A little incomprehensible, some say. One knows Leliana's history, one can hardly not, it is entirely infamous. And Josephine may have made her missteps in her first seasons, but she is hardly—one of that sort. So to speak.

It has been a year, and Josephine still wonders what would happen if Leliana were to kiss her, how it would be to lie with her. All her intensity.

It has almost happened. It has almost happened several times.

Leliana's fingers in her hair, lifting a stray lock back into place. Josephine, reaching out to brush petals from Leliana's face after another flight through a distinctly forbidden garden. The way their hands lingered in those moments, the way that Leliana looked at her—

They are always a little drunk, in those moments. Oh, not ever so, never so much so that they grow entirely clumsy with it. Only enough that one may choose, if one wishes, to be a little loose-tongued without losing so very much face.

"I loved you a little, I think," Josephine says. "When I didn't know you. When I was—a child, really. I always thought that you loved what you did so very much. I envied it. But I wonder if what I wanted was really you, and not your bearing."

Leliana hums thoughtfully, turns her face up to the leaves that spread bright and young and green above them, to the peach of the evening sky. Longer evenings here than in Antiva, where the sun sets fast.

"Do you love me now?"

This game of courtship that they play in their more sober moments, Leliana gallant and flirtatious, Josephine holding herself aloof. Josephine thinks of it now. Considers it.

"I am your friend," Josephine says. "And honoured to be so. Would you—?"

Leliana refills her cup, as indicated; strong wine, and one ought to water it down.

They never do.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Leliana asks. "Now that we are—intimate friends, let us say."

"Of course," Josephine says.

"I did enjoy it," Leliana says. "I enjoyed that people loved me but could not touch me. I enjoyed the secrets. I enjoyed all of it. Even killing."

A body on a tiled floor.

"I can hardly imagine it now," Josephine says.

"I killed a great many people during the Blight," Leliana says. "A great many—things. I had left it behind, you know. I was a quiet lay sister in the Chantry."

Josephine raises an eyebrow. One hardly knows what to say. Best to wait, perhaps, for the point.

"Well, not so _very_ quiet," Leliana concedes, with a smile. "I believed I had changed, though. I had not, of course. I am as I was made, and that gave me shame for a long time. But no longer."

She looks across at Josephine, her face golden in the slanting light, not smiling now.

Andraste burned. Fervour and flame.

"There is a reason I came back to Val Royeaux specifically," Leliana says. "Well, two reasons, I suppose. But one I want to tell you now. I came back to Val Royeaux to meet with someone, with the person who—made me, in a sense. And to kill her."

"Marjolaine," Josephine breathes. Marjolaine and Leliana, Leliana and Marjolaine, the two of them entwined in all things once. The touches that had passed between them that just edged outside the limits of propriety.

"Marjolaine, yes," Leliana agrees easily.

Marjolaine is a month dead. It has been the talk of the city ever since, the whispered speculation about the who and the how of it—although certainly not the why.

"She was the final piece," Leliana says. "I am sure that my dear friend in Amaranthine would disapprove, although on what grounds I could not say, given who it is he is in love with. But the fact is that I do not regret it. I feel—free, in a sense. Free to use my gifts as I ought, at last."

Leliana has never spoken of her work as a bard, leaves it carefully to one side in their conversations. Who her patron now is, which deaths she has caused, which secrets she has revealed and hidden—Josephine knows none of it.

Of course, Leliana knows only a little of Josephine's own intrigues, if she has not gone digging. One must assume that she has.

Surely it is a different thing, to end a career rather than a life?

Gaubert threw himself to his death in the immaculately maintained lake of his estate, certainly. But it was his own decision, not her hand.

Not her knife.

He was corrupt. She did nothing he did not richly deserve.

Perhaps Marjolaine deserved whatever it was that Leliana finally did to her. Quite likely she did, in fact.

Why should Josephine feel the least bit uneasy?

She breathes it out, into the warm evening air. Relaxes her body one bit at a time.

"And now you serve only the Maker, is that so?"

And Leliana leans in close to her, whispers as though it were a very great secret:

"I serve Reverend Mother Dorothea, and the Maker through her."

Her lips against the shell of Josephine's ear.

Her perfume.

Josephine turns her head.

It is—in a way, a kiss. A light brush of lips against lips. A careful breath.

Nothing unfurls.

There is no sense of potential.

There is only the sun slipping slowly down below the horizon, taking the warmth of the late spring evening with it. Leliana's face, shadowed now, deep hollows around her eyes.

"Oh, my dear friend," Leliana says. "I did not mean to burden you so. How dull we're being."

 

 

4.

 

And oh, one is dull at times. This is the way of it; one cannot be frivolous always. One must be serious, or one must be angry. One must, despite every effort, spend some of one's time deeply and genuinely afraid.

There is, once again, a body. No, not Josephine's hand; not even Josephine's will. But Josephine's hall.

There was a person who lived and breathed and thought and felt, and now there is only a dead thing, and a rug that will never be the same again.

"Leliana," Josephine says, without looking at her. "A moment, if you please."

She takes Leliana's arm more harshly than she is used to doing, and leads her quite definitely away down the hall, up the back stairs, well away from the scene.

A dark room, the candles not yet lit.

"I am not some innocent," Josephine says, fierce with frustration. "I do not employ you, I do not require your services. I require nothing from you beyond friendship!"

Leliana says, "very well, and I suppose next time I ought to demonstrate the depth of my friendship by allowing you to die? I confess, that may be beyond the limits of my indulgence."

" _Indulgence_ ," Josephine says. "As though I were a child! You have this, this image of me, as though I were still a sixteen year old girl in a wretchedly failed dress, playing at something she doesn't understand. You find it charming, no doubt. You find it refreshing. But I am grown, and I am a player of the Game, and if you believe I have no experience with assassination attempts then I put it to you that you must know very little of Antiva."

Overstatement, in anger. She had been truly shaken. Feels shaken still.

Well, one cannot unsay it.

"Josie," Leliana says, and hesitates, seems—can it truly be?—at a loss for words. Sighs. "Perhaps you're right. It is only—you are an invaluable friend to me. I reacted in fear. Nothing more."

"When exactly did you begin to do things that were not in some way considered?" Josephine asks, exasperated. Oh, yes, Leliana may play at spontaneity, at running wild. But it is, it must be, play.

Leliana, though, laughs—no, not delicately or sharply, not as she usually does. A tiny snort, another. A hand over her mouth. Her shoulders shake a little with it.

"Oh, Josie," she manages at last. "We truly don't know each other as well as we believe."

It is 9:34. Divine Justinia is newly ascended, and Leliana is her hand, to move unseen.

One ought to be glad. One ought to celebrate the newly elevated status of a friend.

Oh, Josephine is Andrastian, devout in her faith, but she is not a fool. The Chantry is a political entity; as any other political entity, it employs many methods to shape the world, the direct intervention of the Maker being for the moment quite remarkably hard to come by and unlikely to achieve the desired results in any case.

I will use my gifts as the Maker wills—

Perhaps, after all, they do not know each other so well.

Perhaps Leliana, sharp as her edges seem, is the idealist of the two of them. And how will that idealism serve her, moving unseen all across Thedas? How has it served her so far?

Josephine considers all of this; considers, in a new light, every game they have ever played.

Ridiculous. Of course Leliana is herself a terrible romantic. How could it be that she had not seen it before?

How much one does not see, when one is young and overly impressed.

There is presumably still a body in her hall, the guard having been called but remaining rather understaffed during the current festivities. She should, of course, still be angry about it.

"Brandy, I think," she says faintly, and rings for the maid, both to fetch the decanter and to pass on a note of apology to Claudine, with whom she was to have enjoyed a pleasant and relaxed late evening dinner and, if things had gone as planned, a still more pleasant night in bed.

Well, one must make some sacrifices.

"Let us—try this again," she says. "Perhaps with rather fewer assumptions on both our parts?"

Two glasses, and the finest brandy; a hastily written note left in the care of a trusted member of the household. The candles lit.

"To self-deception," Leliana says, with a wry smile. Feeling wounded still, and masking it surprisingly poorly.

"No," Josephine says. "I would rather not, if it's all the same to you."

"To beginning, then," Leliana says, and they raise their glasses, and drink faster than they ought.

 

 

5.

 

Deep winter, an unusually bitter one. Snow collects between the buildings in drifts, and the pavements of Val Royeaux are dangerously icy under Josephine's feet. She is in no particular hurry, which is fortunate; it would not do to add oneself to the growing list of embarrassing accidents which someone is certainly keeping. It must, in this season, be extensive.

But she is only visiting Leliana, who will not use the exact timing of her arrival as leverage. And so she takes it carefully—not least in the hope that the walk may clear her head of a particularly trying day's work.

Over the dark river, surface frosted with thin ice, by the old bridge. The cold mist turns the light of the lanterns lining it diffuse, a spreading glow. Up towards the heart of the city—the religious heart, at any rate.

Leliana might have almost any residence that pleased her, things being now as they are. What pleases her is a modest apartment near the Cathedral, green with trailing ivy, furnished with exquisitely upholstered furniture in beautifully discreet florals.

The nug, however, seems rather incongruous.

"Her name is Boulette," Leliana says with a laugh, seeing the direction of Josephine's gaze. "Her father Schmooples was my faithful companion through the Blight."

The nug's nose, almost the only part of it visible where it peers through the doorway into the hall, twitches.

"Don't worry," Leliana says, to the nug. "Josie is my dearest friend, and I'm quite sure she will love you. Come on." And then, to Josephine, "I have a very good Antivan brandy I think you will enjoy. A gift from a friend."

And this is how one finds oneself conversing on the topic of the Hero of Ferelden's fraught relationship with the Crows while a nug snuffs and noses at one's hand in hope of another treat, little claws scrabbling at one's knee for balance.

"I confess," Josephine says, "I have never heard of anyone leaving the Crows. That is to say, not successfully. Nor have I heard of anyone successfully harbouring a defected Crow. They make rather a point of pride of it, actually. I had thought that perhaps this Zevran one has heard of was from some lesser guild on the fringes of the country—there are one or two that hold on, you know. But in the South they are suddenly all Crows with a handful of royal assassinations to their name."

"Oh no," Leliana says. "He is very much the real thing, although perhaps not the most impressive example, not when I first met him. I believe he was specialised in seduction, which you know is not terribly useful against an ogre. But I like him very much. He's ever so impertinent. And flexible."

"You did _not_ ," Josephine begins.

Leliana laughs. "No. But I have heard quite enough to judge all the same. In any case, the Crows are as far as I know still quite furious with both the Warden and Zevran. I wonder if their determined failure may actually hurt their reputation, if they do not have a care."

"Outside Antiva, perhaps," Josephine says. "Their status in Antiva itself is I'm afraid quite unassailable."

"It may be for the best," Leliana says. "You at least know what to expect with the Crows, no? With serious competition between guilds, anything may happen."

Boulette, at this moment, presses her nose to Josephine's elbow and sneezes explosively, startling her out of her response; perhaps for the best. She has no love for the Crows, for all that Antiva might very well not function without them. They are a fact of life; but so are a great many things, and nobody has yet suggested to her that she ought to appreciate wasting sicknesses.

"Quite right, Boulette," Leliana says. "We mustn't spend the entire night talking about such things. We have more than enough talk of politics in our lives as it is. Shall I tell you about the Rivaini woman I met in Denerim who called herself a pirate queen?"

"If her name was Isabela, I confess we are acquainted," Josephine says, and sees the exact moment when Leliana registers the slight inflection on that last word; the way her face lights up in wicked delight.

" _Really,_ " she says; draws the word out. "I suppose I ought not be surprised. Isabela has a great many acquaintances. But here I have thought you so very proper, Josie. All these years!"

"It is hardly my fault if you have," Josephine says. "In any case, I could not dream of commenting on whatever it is you imagine I am insinuating." A little smile that wins her a laugh from Leliana. So nearly unshadowed.

 

 

6.

 

Leliana writes, _this city is truly a horror._

She writes, _I cannot describe to you the tensions that threaten to pull the place apart, or the terror in which many of the residents live—do not think that I write so to spare you. Rather it is to spare myself from detailing the things I have seen yet again._

She writes, _I'm tired, Josie. What I wouldn't give to drink in peace with you for a night or two and talk of everything that might come into our heads. But duty is as it is._

Signed: Kirkwall, 23 Drakonis, 9:37 Dragon.

In truth, Josephine is also growing a little tired. She is newly returned from a winter in Antiva City, and although it was even more beautiful that she remembered, although the warmth was welcome after the grey Orlesian skies, although she met some entertaining old friends and some scandalous new ones—even so, it has left her worn. Hour upon hour of family business, covert meetings. A quiet sale of property here, a renegotiated contract there—no end to it, and no rescue in sight. Perhaps if one could extend one's reach back into Orlais—but where are the resources to come from to begin such a venture? It would merely introduce a whole new set of troublesome possibilities.

She is a miracle-worker by trade, but there are in fact limits. Give her a war to stop, give her a feud to lay to rest—or to instigate. But this, oh, this—

It will be the death of her.

Duty is as it is. She accepts it, and does not begrudge it.

One may be tired all the same.

She writes, _I share your sentiments, and I mean that with the deepest possible sincerity. How long has it been since we shared a bottle of something fine?_

It has been nearly a year. Letters and letters and letters, a party, a diplomatic function where their respective interests coincide. Nothing quiet. Nothing private.

She writes, _Let us not discuss business, not in that way. What do you make of this new fad for tall headpieces? Personally I feel it goes a little far. Do you know, only last week Duchess Nicole had the terrible misfortune to fasten in a doorway at Lady Yvonne's salon? Quite a lasting humiliation, I fear._

She writes, _I miss you terribly,_ and considers the daring of stating such a thing, unvarnished and unmodified. Sets her quill down once more to the paper, definite stop. Let it stand.

_Your devoted friend._

Val Royeaux, 5 Cloudreach, 9:37 Dragon.

And of course, post scriptum, _I don't ask your business or that you should be other than you are, only, as ever, that you attempt discourse before you resort to violence, rather than after._

Consider it an official registration of opinion, with no particular hope of influence. A matter of moral obligation only. Perhaps it will make Leliana laugh, which would be something.

Leliana is fraying. Perhaps she doesn't see it herself. Perhaps faith is, for her, enough of an absolute that the rest matters little. But she has lost two friends to intrigue—that is to say, murder—in the last year, has hardly had time for those that remain. The Circles discuss independence, and some say, in hushed whispers, that the Divine does far too little to discourage it.

Leliana travels and travels and does things that may not be spoken of, things which Josephine rather wishes she could not guess the nature of. The trouble is that one does begin to guess. This death, perhaps, or that one—dissenters, people sceptical about the politics of the Divine.

Certainly, that Nevarran lord last autumn might have died of a heart disorder. It is possible. But he had views. And Josephine has a letter tucked into a hidden compartment behind her mirror, signed Nevarra City, 14 Harvestmere, 9:36 Dragon.

_I do so dislike the Nevarran populace's disinclination to burn the dead. It is messy, and troublesome. And the moaning! Frightful._

And then, now, here, in this present moment, a month after the other now in which Josephine is reading a letter from Kirkwall—on this new spring morning, Leliana striding into Josephine's office with a brilliant smile on her face, newly returned to the city and looking as untroubled as a person may be—

Josephine is a little afraid.

An indefinite thing. A thing that will not take shape fully until later, in yet another now, one in which the world will have been changed entirely; another now in which she reads a letter, once again, in Leliana's meticulously neat hand.

Does she feel the shadow of it, in this now?

She will ask herself the question later, again and again.

But here: she is afraid. She feels _some_ form of shadow, to be sure. Feels it in the dissonance between the bright and energetic Leliana who stands before her and the Leliana who, in Josephine's head, is at that very moment writing: _I'm tired, Josie._

"Come out to lunch with me," Leliana says. "Leave your work. The day is beautiful."

It is. The warmest day of the year so far, everything green and growing, the heart of the city filled with the smell of damp earth from the night's rain.

They walk through the plaza, under the hangings. Over bridges and through public gardens.

"Kirkwall will be trouble," Leliana says. "But I am not there for the moment, so I shall not spare it a thought. I shall think instead of pleasanter things—how delightful your new way of doing your hair is, and how glad I am that you have not seen fit to purchase one of those ridiculous headpieces."

"You are using me as an escape again, I think," Josephine says.

"Well, certainly," Leliana says. "But you may use me in the same fashion whenever your accounting books become too dull and you cannot find a good intrigue to involve yourself in. I have nothing against being used. I would treasure your company as much were other things not—as they are."

Perhaps that is what friendship is—one of the things that friendship may be. A moment, a spring morning, where one can pretend one is untroubled. Covertly confiding and anxious letters, but open laughter together in person.

"A new restaurant has opened, by the water," Josephine says. "One must book some weeks ahead of course, strictly speaking, but—a life of constant political manoeuvring must offer some advantages, I think."

"You love it," Leliana says.

She covers her mouth, a small laugh, a blush. Caught out. Pleasantly so. "Well, yes."

 

 

7.

 

That other letter. Haven, undated. But the day after. It must be the day after.

Josephine reads by the window, light falling green through the glass.

_I alluded of course to a change, but this is not how I thought it would look. Will you come to me? We will need you._

There are many things to consider, and so Josephine spends several seconds considering them. Ambassadorial duty, the chaos of the Chantry, the end of the world.

 _I need you,_ Leliana writes. _I cannot_ —cannot what?

Only space.

So: Leliana is an idealist. She may walk in shadow, but she has lived for a decade through a consuming belief in the light.

And the Divine is dead, and she cannot.

Why pretend to consider it? Of course Josephine is going to travel to Haven, of course it will be by the fastest possible route. Whether she will remain will depend on what she finds there, whether this Inquisition is truly what it means to be. But she will make the journey, and she will keep Leliana safe in whatever way she can.

Hasty instructions. A leave of absence is permissible, and it is not her first; her staff are quite competent, and they tell her so ten times before the end of the day. She is fussing, she cannot stop fussing—

It is only that she is afraid. It is only that she wants to keep every one of these people safe.

And what does she expect to find in Haven? It could be anything.

It is this: a sea of tents in the snow outside the village, crowded houses, the ringing of hammers, horses stamping in their stalls. It is already alive, and growing, although the breach is overwhelming, so close overhead.

It is this: Leliana, surrounded by her books and her poisons and her secrets, in a makeshift headquarters, very pale, bruised-looking around the eyes. Mouth pulled into a hard unhappy line.

It is Leliana, long missed, long worried over, now before her, and in the middle of being shouted at by a stocky dwarven woman.

Well, perhaps not shouted at. Lectured, certainly.

"We do not," the dwarf says. "We do not kill people just because it would be simplest! What sort of beginning is that?"

"And you would prefer that I risk lives by being too merciful?" Ice. A Leliana she has only rarely seen. Has only ever argued with. Leliana the Left Hand of the Divine, tried to her limit.

"I would prefer that you show me you have the competence to be both merciful and efficient," the dwarf says.

"I would have thought that you of all people would understand the impossibility of that sentiment," Leliana says. "You are Carta, I am told! The world is coming apart, people are terrified, and _you_ are asking me to be kind?"

"Yes." What is the expression on this dwarf's face? She is turned away, and unknown, and so impossible to guess. Short strict hair, daggers on her belt, a long dark coat. She stands very straight.

"Why?"

"Because the world's coming apart," the dwarf says, and now she sounds tired, as tired as Leliana looks, as tired as Josephine feels. "Enough people are dying already."

Leliana turns away sharply, and Josephine is startled to realise that the point has been accepted.

"Inquisitor," Leliana says, "you are a remarkably persistent woman."

"I'm going to have to be, clearly," the dwarf—the Inquisitor, and maker, whatever she might have expected, a Carta thug was not it—says. "See to it." Turns to leave, catches sight of Josephine standing at a loss in the snow outside, and pauses long enough for nod smartly to her, and sweeps out towards the main Chantry building beyond.

She is very handsome. Unconventionally so. Tattooed in a band across her face, but faintly, the ink faded with age and not refreshed. One ought not like that sort of thing, and one could certainly never act on it—but one does. Enjoy it, that is.

That is in any case all Josephine has time to note before Leliana is on her, arms around her, chain mail digging into Josephine's shoulder. No perfume, only metal and blood.

"Oh, my friend," she says. "I am so glad that you came. It has been unspeakable."

Of course she takes the post.

There are already people here who are significant, or who wish to think themselves significant, and someone must meet with them—deal with them, strengthen their impression of the young Inquisition, relieve them of their illusions.

Good reasons, to be sure. But not her only ones.

"I do hope that Leliana was mistaken in calling you Carta," she says to the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste.

To Vesna Cadash, in fact, who is not so much an imposing figurehead at this particular moment as a person with a potentially awkward past; who shrugs apologetically.

Josephine sighs.

"Not much I can do about it, I'm afraid," the Inquisitor says. Vesna says. "It involved stabbing people for money, and not in a fancy romantic way. I cut a man's ear off once; you might as well hear it from me before someone else throws it at you. Sorry. If I'd known I was going to be Thedas' last hope, I'd have planned my life more conveniently." She rubs at her chin, gestures resignation, and Josephine realises with sudden clarity that Vesna is as tired as the rest of them, as her and Leliana, as Cassandra and Cullen.

"Of course it can't be helped," Josephine says. "Believe me, the matter is not beyond my power to manage."

It is, in fact, good—to have a very difficult problem on one's hands, and to know that it can be solved.

Vesna smiles. "We're lucky to have you, aren't we. Talented and beautiful. Is there anything you don't do?"

"Thank Leliana for my presence," Josephine says. "And as for the rest—you are far too kind. But I am certainly glad to be here."

She wants to say: about what you told Leliana—

She wants to say: thank you.

Please take care of her.

I don't know if I can.

But it would be entirely improper, to a superior, to a woman she has barely met.

And besides, Vesna is already on her way out the door, throwing a grin over her shoulder that, for a moment, transforms her face entirely.

 

 

8.

 

What a strange place the rotunda is, its wide open space with only encircling platforms available for use, the curious movement of sound through it. One may hear the scratch of a quill from the other side of the library on the floor below quite clearly, but not the conversation of Leliana's agents standing only yards away.

Mostly, however, one hears the crows.

"I preferred the nugs, I think," Josephine says, glancing up at the closest specimen, which seems to be considering whether it would get away with stealing her favourite hairpin.

"I did too, although you mustn't tell the crows I said so," Leliana agrees. "The crows have their charm, but nugs are such darling little things. I doubt they would make terribly efficient messengers, however. The world is not a kind place for them." She sighs. "Not for any of us, I suppose."

Josephine leans her elbows upon the railing, gazes down at the bookshelves and desks, the murals. "Leliana," she says, "I should tell you that I had a most enlightening conversation with the Inquisitor last night."

"Did you," Leliana says. Smiles a little—she has begun, on occasion, to smile again. For a time, she did not.

"I am innocent, am I?"

Leliana raises an eyebrow. "You mean to say that you were aware of our dear Vesna's affection for you? I apologise for my mistake."

"That is—I—"

"Well then," Leliana says.

"Yes, I was surprised," Josephine concedes. "Our respective positions, you understand. That the Inquisitor might consider a romance—" She shakes her head. "It simply seemed unthinkable."

"You have the most adorable smile on your face right now," Leliana says, and Josephine starts.

"I do not."

"And you're blushing. Josie!"

"I believe," Josephine says, waving this away, "that I have spoken to you before on the question of my—my _innocence._ Do you imagine I have been celibate all my life?"

"Oh no," Leliana says, with a little smirk, "I don't imagine that at all. But I _know_ —I am entirely certain—that you have never knowingly entered into anything you might think of as a courtship. A romance, of the kind you and Cassandra are so terribly fond of. You have merely played. Diverting little games which could not possibly come to anything."

In fact, Josephine's preferred sort of romantic literature would probably make Cassandra flush furiously, but she allows the point to stand.

"You courted me," she says.

"Yes," Leliana says. "For a year, Josie. And I know you thought of lying with me, I don't pretend you did not. Perhaps you thought of other things. But you never thought of my wanting in any seriousness to lie with you, much less romance you. You see?"

"You might have been clearer in your intentions," Josephine says.

Leliana's laugh is a bright peal, unexpected. The crows chatter in surprise, flutter and flap on their perches.

"And where would we be now if I had? Perhaps we could have had something. Perhaps it would have been a catastrophe. But you are, as you said many years ago, my friend. I would not have it otherwise."

"No," Josephine says. "Nor I. I am—content. As content as one may claim to be, in these times. But are you?"

Leliana sighs. "There are things I must lay to rest. Make peace with. I cannot see the way. Not yet. Give me only a little time to attempt to make sense of the senseless."

Josephine looks up at her. "You do not plan to simply stab them this time? Have I finally repeated the virtue of niceness before knives so many times that it has sunk into your head?" Sighs herself. "No, of course, it's the Inquisitor."

"Don't tell me you're jealous of your own lover," Leliana says.

"That she can be the friend to you I have failed to be? I—perhaps, a little. She is not, I think, what any of us expected. She is remarkable in every way."

"Josie," Leliana says, with sudden softness; lays her hand upon Josephine's. "You never failed me. You have always been there when I needed you. Answered my letters and drawn me from my thoughts and made me laugh. If anything, the failing is mine. How much I have held back from you because I could not bear to see you worried by it."

"And I worried all the same," Josephine says. "We may trade in different secrets, you and I, but I am not blind."

"No," Leliana agrees. "As I say, if we are to speak of fault, I will not place it in any of your actions."

"Perhaps we ought not speak of fault at all," Josephine allows.

Leliana's hand stays resting over hers, although Leliana must have much to do; as much as Josephine, or more.

How hard they work.

And it is as it is.

The light slowly fades.

"Come," Leliana says. "I have a little business to attend. I will be done before the next bell. And then you must drink with me, and we will be comfortable together, and I will not murder anyone at all."

"I do not for a moment believe that last," Josephine says. "But thank you. I will enjoy it."


End file.
